Maybe The Apple Watch Isn't a Flop After All

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Maybe The Apple Watch Isn't a Flop After All

Apple won't say how many Apple Watches it has sold, but market research firm IDC thinks the company's new-fangled wearable is doing pretty well—at least as new-fangled wearables go.

IDC says that Apple shipped 3.6 million units in the second quarter of the year, or 20 percent of the overall wearables market for that period. That number puts Apple just behind Fitbit, currently the king of wearables, which shipped 4.4 million devices, according to IDC.

"Anytime Apple enters a new market, not only does it draw attention to itself, but to the market as a whole," Ramon Llamas, research manager for IDC's Wearables team, said in a statement. "Its participation benefits multiple players and platforms within the wearables ecosystem, and ultimately drives total volumes higher.”

But other hints paint a different picture. Taiwan-based supplier Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, which crams Apple Watch sensors into their compact cases, suggested earlier this month that Apple didn’t reach its “break-even volume” of 2 million Watches per month during the second quarter of the year and didn’t expect it to reach that goal during the third quarter either.

The Watch serves as a barometer not only for the wearable market as a whole, but for Apple itself. Prior to its launch, Wall Street investors were urging the company for new innovations. That innovation has arrived, but it's unclear how successful it will be. Meanwhile, Apple is among the American tech giants under added pressure due to the apparent saturation of the smartphone market in China and the recent equities meltdown in the country.